Bosque fire prompts evacuations near Santa Claran Casino in Española - John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
A 100-acre brush fire that reportedly started in a bosque north of Santa Claran Casino on Friday night is threatening multiple structures and prompting evacuations of the area, according to the City of Española.
A city dispatcher confirmed the fire Friday evening and said firefighters from Los Alamos, Santa Fe, Ohkay Owingeh and other nearby departments have responded to the blaze.
“Evacuations are in effect from Santa (Claran) Casino through the Fairview Bridge,” reads a post on the City of Española Facebook page. “If you are in this area, please follow all official instructions and evacuate promptly.”
The city is directing evacuees to the “La Mesilla and San Pedro centers.”
“Keep our city in your thoughts and prayers, along with all fire departments and law enforcement agencies currently responding,” the Facebook post reads. “Multiple agencies are actively working to protect our community.”
In an update, Dispatch Center Director Josh Archuleta said roadblocks put in place along Riverside Drive Friday night were lifted by around 1 a.m. Saturday morning.
“The different commands are meeting right now to discuss the next steps,” he said. “Shelters have been closed for lack of use and the need to reopen them will be reevaluated tomorrow by the team.”
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Miss Indian World pageant winners mark the end of a decades-long tradition - Savannah Peters, Associated Press
Codi High Elk was a shy teenager most comfortable caring for horses on her family's ranch on the Cheyenne River Reservation when she threw away an application to compete in a new pageant for Indigenous women — an application her brother fished out of the trash, sending her on a path to becoming the first Miss Indian World.
That was in 1984, when High Elk remembers letting her six older siblings do most of the talking and wanting no part in a competition that required public speaking. But the event that transformed her from shy teen to an ambassador for her people has come to an end.
“From the day I got my crown, my life changed,” said High Elk, who credits her time as Miss Indian World with giving her the confidence to pursue two degrees and a career expanding credit access for Lakota people. “I want that same opportunity for my granddaughters.”
The pageant has been a headlining event at Gathering of Nations, a massive and at times controversial event that bills itself as the largest powwow in North America, for more than four decades. The competition shaped the lives of young women from across the U.S. and Canada eager to share cultural knowledge and compete for the prestigious title and iconic, intricately beaded crown.
But this year will be the last for the powwow, with the final Miss Indian World named in 2025. Organizers have said the time has come for the events to end, but gave no other details.
The pageant’s rotating collection of beaded crowns are set to be retired when the two-day gathering culminates Saturday. In time they may be offered to a museum for display, said Melonie Matthews, daughter of the Gathering of Nations founder.
Stiff competition
Dania Wahwasuck, of the Prairie Band Potawatomi and Pyramid Lake Paiute tribes, won her title before a roaring crowd last year. Her pastel-colored crown and sash featuring a star quilt motif and another set that sparkles with rhinestones and shades of pink will be among those retired Saturday.
The pageant invited Indigenous women, aged 18 to 25, to compete. Contestants had to be single, with no children and pledge to maintain specific moral standards.
Contestants described an intense five-day process with interviews, public speaking and a highly anticipated traditional talent showcase.
Tori McConnell, who won the title in 2023, sought advice from Karuk and Yurok elders while developing her performance. She showcased traditional basketry, explaining first in Karuk and then in English how she weaved using materials gathered from her ancestral homelands in northwest California.
“To have our art recognized on that level was so validating,” McConnell said. “Not just for me but for my community.”
A cultural ambassador
The Miss Indian World crown has traveled around the world, from a Māori Haka competition in New Zealand to the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan and the Oceti Sakowin camp at the height of protests at Standing Rock against an oil pipeline.
In the summer of 1984, High Elk recalls scouring a Paris grocery store for ingredients to make fry bread and Lakota tripe soup for the university students who had invited her there.
“You become an ambassador not just for your own culture but for all Indigenous peoples,” said Shayai Lucero, who was crowned Miss Indian World in 1997.
Lucero, who comes from Acoma and Laguna pueblos in New Mexico, did not grow up in a powwow culture. But at the 1997 Stanford University Powwow, she was embraced by a community of pueblo people who had been in the Bay Area for decades due to a federal program that sought to relocate Native Americans off reservations and into cities.
“All these people showed up who knew my family, knew our language and traditions,” said Lucero. “Suddenly, I felt at home.”
During their tenure, winners have advocated for causes ranging from Indigenous language revitalization to domestic violence prevention.
Cheyenne Kippenberger, Miss Indian World 2019, focused on mental health as COVID-19 forced ceremonies, cultural events and community gatherings to shut down. As the only two-year titleholder, she hosted online events and encouraged Native people to get vaccinated.
“I remember thinking, everybody’s feeling really lonely and confined. We need to find a way to connect people,” said Kippenberger, a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Florida.
The end of an era
There are no plans for the Miss Indian World pageant to continue, the organization said. The title is trademarked by the Gathering of Nations, Ltd., the nonprofit that operates the powwow and pageant.
Over the years, Gathering of Nations has been criticized and called overly commercial. Founder Derek Mathews, who at times has claimed distant Cherokee ancestry but is not a tribal citizen, has made few public comments in response.
Melonie Matthews, who is Santa Clara Pueblo on her mother's side, said the organization did not consider transferring the Miss Indian World trademark to any other group.
“The Miss Indian World pageant goes hand in hand with the powwow. It was never a stand-alone event,” she said in an emailed statement.
Several former titleholders, however, have been exploring the creation of a new national pageant for Indigenous women.
“A lot of us were saying ‘Miss Indian World is bigger than one powwow,’" Lucero said. “We don't need the powwow to continue her legacy.”
Many tribal nations and powwows crown royalty. But young women who dream of representing their communities on a national, Native-focused pageant stage won't have that avenue. Five years ago, Miss Native American USA crowned its last winner. The Miss Indian Nations and Miss Indian America titles also are defunct.
Many past Miss Indian World titleholders who went on to become lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs, language and culture bearers and sisters to one another say the crown empowered them as leaders.
“It's a bittersweet feeling,” said Kippenberger, who now heads a tribal consulting firm. "But I feel full confidence and optimism that something positive will fill in the gap.”
New Mexico environment officials mandate more legacy nuclear waste at WIPP - by Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico environment officials on Thursday issued new requirements for the federal government’s operation of the nation’s only nuclear waste disposal site as part of longstanding efforts to address legacy waste.
State officials, the federal government and contractors operating the lab and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant agreed to settlement terms in 2023 to dispose of more legacy waste in lieu of new defense waste and additional oversight terms.
Environment Secretary James Kenney said this week the federal government has walked back those agreements in the intervening years. He said the latest budget from the Trump administration cut DOE’s total cleanup budget by 5%. Further, statements from WIPP that construction for areas to hold more legacy waste would be pushed back to 2032 circumvented the agreement, Kenney said.
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“Simply because their budget is changing at a federal level does not excuse them from their obligation to meet the terms of our settlement agreement,” Kenney told Source NM.
He noted that WIPP disposal of waste from Idaho National Laboratory outstripped New Mexico at a rate of five to one in the last two years.
The revised permit issued Thursday, requires a clear definition of legacy waste. It also mandates that WIPP dedicate 55% of disposal volume to LANL legacy waste through 2031, raising that to 75% of total disposal volume in 2032. Additionally, it requires all waste at a LANL nuclear and chemical waste landfill to be shipped to WIPP by July 1, 2028. Finally, the permit increases reporting requirements.
The new permit allows state officials to put the focus back on legacy waste cleanup and strengthen transparency, Kenney said.
The DOE will “carefully evaluate” the state’s proposed changes, said Valerie Gohlke, the communications manager for the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office, in a statement to Source NM.
Anti-nuclear watchdogs told Source NM the proposed regulations represent a significant shift in state regulator’s posture towards the federal nuclear program — and in their view — a welcome one.
“It’s pointing to an increasingly adversarial relationship between NMED and DOE, all of which I view as good,” said Nuclear Watch New Mexico Executive Director Jay Coghlan. “It means NMED is putting New Mexicans ahead of the nuclear weapons industry.”
Greg Mello, the executive director of nuclear nonproliferation nonprofit Los Alamos Study Group, noted that the Trump administration nearly doubled the budget for plutonium pit production program in the past year at LANL.“The Trump administration wants to make more nuclear weapons over cleaning up the mess from the old ones,” Mello said. “NMED rightly insists that there be a provision for cleaning up the mess that LANL and DOE made.”
NMED is accepting public comment on the draft revised permit until June 8, and said in a news release that the process is expected to conclude in the fall.
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Evacuations lifted as firefighters combat San Miguel County wildfire —Santa Fe New Mexican
A San Miguel County wildfire has grown to 251 acres and is still uncontained, although fire officials have reported progress and evacuations have been lifted.
What’s being called the Tusas Fire is located west of Sapello, about halfway between Sapello and San Ignacio, alongside and north of State Road 266.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the fire was reported Wednesday afternoon. A state Forestry Division spokesperson says the fire is still burning through timber, piñon and juniper on private lands managed by the agency. The cause is still under investigation.
Evacuations had been ordered in the area, although the evacuation order has now been lifted and residents have been allowed to return. However, road closures in the area of the fire remain in effect. The flying of drones or aircraft in the vicinity is not allowed. Also, nearby drivers, including those on State Highway 94 and State Highway 518, are asked to use caution due to smoke.
Si Se Puede Committee to present day of voices, music, community Saturday at Albuqerque's Railyards Market —Mark Haslett, KUNM
In Albuquerque tomorrow, the newly formed New Mexico Si Se Puede Committee will be hosting an event highlighting community organizers and performing artists. Saturday’s gathering is called “Voces de la Comunidad.” The Si Se Puede Committee is the organizational successor to what was once called the Cesar Chavez Committee. Since the publication of multiple credible allegations of sexual assault against the late civil rights leader, institutions and organizations around the country have been replacing Cesar Chavez’s name.
Tomorrow’s event will happen at the Railyards Market in Albuquerque. Organizers say there will be community resource providers, musical performances, children’s activities, and food trucks at the event. Featured musical artists include Henry Cortez and Los Heartaches, Oti Ruiz y Voces de Coronado, and Mala Maña. New Mexico State Poet Laureate Manuel Gonzalez will read from his works. Danza Azteca is also scheduled to perform. It’s all happening tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Railyards.